Planting Good Seeds

 New Orleans chef Emeril Lagasse is raising a new crop of young cooks through his school gardens and teaching kitchens

WHEN YOU'RE a TV celebrity chef and win $125,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, what do you do with the money? For New Orleans' Emeril Lagasse, the answer was easy.

He phoned his friend Sister Lillian McCormack, founder of St. Michael Special School in New Orleans (which is privately funded for students who have intellectual and developmental disabilities), and offered a lifeline in the form of his winnings.

For high-profile chefs, the options for giving back are endless, but that donation 22 years ago was Lagasse's first taste of what it meant to make a real difference.

Grateful for his enormous success, not only on television but also with his award-winning cookbooks and restaurants throughout the nation, Lagasse (who grew up in Massachusetts and later made a home in New Orleans) found himself in a position to empower and inspire young people. Just two years after his game show win, he launched the Emeril Lagasse Foundation with the aim of mentoring youth through food. His organization has since granted more than $18 million to children's charities, supporting nutrition, arts, and culinary programs.